1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of data processing systems. More particularly, the invention relates to an improved system and method for mapping and processing data object identification codes shared between a device and a service.
2. Description of the Related Art
A variety of wireless data processing devices have been introduced over the past several years. These include wireless personal digital assistants (“PDAs”) such as the Palm® VIIx handheld, cellular phones equipped with data processing capabilities, and, more recently, corporate wireless messaging devices such as the Blackberry™ wireless pager developed by Research In Motion (“RIM”).™
The wireless networks over which these data processing devices communicate typically allocate a relatively small amount of bandwidth per device. For example, Cellular Digital Packet Data (“CDPD”) and ARDIS networks provide a data throughput of only 19.2 Kbps and the BellSouth Intelligent Wireless Network, which employs Mobitex technology, provides a data throughput of only 8 Kbps.
As such, data compression techniques are particularly important on these networks. One type of data compression replaces common character strings with relatively shorter code words. For example, the string “apps.email.mailmessage” may be replaced by an identification code which consumes substantially less bandwidth (e.g., a 16-bit or 32-bit identification code).
In order to use identification code words in this manner, however, the same ID code table must be maintained at both the originating end (e.g., a data processing device) and the receiving end (e.g., a client or server with which the data processing device is communicating). Maintaining up-to-date tables on hundreds or potentially thousands of data processing devices may be difficult, particularly when the character strings used on these devices may change over time. As such, what is needed is an improved system and method for maintaining synchronized ID code tables on data processing devices and the clients and/or servers with which they communicate.